


the weight of this heart

by jadeddiva



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, spoilers for the finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-11
Updated: 2015-05-11
Packaged: 2018-03-30 02:49:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3920104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadeddiva/pseuds/jadeddiva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She tries not to think about the look on his face, the suppressed disappointment, the vulnerability in his eyes.  Emma Swan, after she returns to the loft and before she lets the darkness take her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the weight of this heart

the weight of this heart

 

_So the wee baby JD decided to sleep for a bit, and I decided to write fic. Spoilers from last night. If you want to set the mood, just listen to The National’s ‘I Need My Girl’ on repeat because apparently that is the only thing I write CS angst to anymore._

 

 

 

 

She closes the door behind her, fingers gripping the worn brass doorknob, legs shaking, heart still pounding, head falling back against the wood. She still remembers the fear she felt when she couldn’t find him – when she thought that he hadn’t made it back, that his death was final ~~just like Graham just like Neal~~ and she couldn’t stop it and –

 

The weight of everything settles on Emma’s shoulders, creeps down her spine, and she struggles to stay upright, resists the temptation to melt dramatically to the floor. She grips the doorknob tighter, takes a deep breath, and pushes off, stumbling towards the sink.

 

(She tries not to think about the look on his face, the suppressed disappointment, the vulnerability in his eyes.)

 

The water is cool against her flushed face, but it doesn’t stop the fire raging inside of her – the shame, the frustration, the guilt.   The water is still dripping off her face when she finally looks up and makes contact with the person staring back at her from the gilded mirror.

 

She’s never been so ashamed of herself in all of her life.

 

The words she spoke in that cave, in that alternate realty, ring in her ears. The memory of her father driving a knife into Killian’s back, and the look on his face as he died, plays over and over again in her mind, and yet she can’t move her lips the right way, can’t make the sounds that form the words that she really wants to say and really wants him to hear. There’s a part of her that’s so frightened by the power of the words that she keeps them inside, swallows them down, and says something else instead every damn time.

 

(She keeps making the same mistake, over and over, and it makes her wonder if maybe she’s actually a character in a book too, because normal people learn from their mistakes, right?)

 

Outside, they wait for her – her parents, and ~~her love~~ Killian.   They’re waiting to go to Granny’s, to celebrate making it back from a fucked-up reality yet again (the citizens of Storybrooke are really too used to this sort of thing) and she wants to go, but she doesn’t. She wants to send her parents ahead, wants to drag Killian up the stairs to her bed, wants to feel him pressed beneath her like she did just minutes ago. She wants to feel the heat of his skin against hers, wants to show him in all the ways that she can’t tell him exactly, and she knows he’ll understand. That’s the language that they speak, actions instead of words, even if words matter – even if words make it real. She knows that he’ll know, because that’s how it is between them.

 

But she can’t. Not now. Not yet.

 

She grips the edge of the sink, hot hands pressing into the cold porcelain, and stares into the mirror. The woman looking back at her looks tired, and lost, and the crazy part is that Emma knows she’s neither of those things, not right now. She’s never felt more awake, more aware, never felt more at home (her fingers itch to hold his, her body wants to be held in his arms, curving inwards, finding peace) but there’s always that one thing stopping her, that one think that keeps her lost and tired, hopeless and alone.

 

And that is the words she can’t say.

 

She’s not sure the point where she fell in love with Killian – sometime between the beanstalk and the ice monster, sometime after he turned his ship around and after their kiss in Neverland (she still remembers the desperate press of his mouth against hers, the way she didn’t want to stop, the way she made him as breathless and reckless as she was).  It wasn’t conscious, not by any stretch of the imagination, more like a sudden awareness that she loved him, like she went to bed in lust one night and woke up in love the next morning.

 

She loves him because he loves her, and because he stays (as selfish as that is). She loves him because he’s the best partner she’s ever had, and the truest friend. She loves him because she’s different around him, and she likes it. She likes that she doesn’t have to be tough, and that all of the sharp broken edges left behind by others don’t keep him away, but make him come closer (how he’s slipped in between the jagged cracks still amazes her).  

 

There’s never been anything like this in her life, and she doesn’t want anything else.

 

“Emma?” her mother knocks on the door softly, and she starts, fingers slipping, heart pounding.

 

“Just a second,” she responds, reaching over to flush the toilet, to make it seem like she’s been doing more than just fighting an internal battle. She reaches for her towel, pats her face dry, checks her mascara. One more look in the mirror, at that tired and lost woman, and she takes a deep breath.

 

She can do this. She can tell him, maybe later tonight. Maybe on his ship. Maybe just the two of them. Somehow, she can tell him.

 

When she leaves the bathroom, her mother and father look at her strangely, but it’s Killian who just extends his hand, smile on his face. Whatever passed between them upstairs is not obvious now except in the way that he squeezes her hand tightly as they exit the loft, by the way that he bumps his shoulder against hers. She squeezes back, takes a deep breath.

 

She is not lost and alone – she’s found her home, and she can do this. She will tell him. Tonight. She will say the words, and make it real, and stop being so scared, and so ashamed.

 

After all, she’s supposed to be the Savior, right?

 


End file.
